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Thursday Sep 18, 2008

I've had the opportunity to work with some creative and brilliant software engineers over the years (hopefully not dating myself too much) - from Andy Hertzfeld and Bill Atkinson (the original Mac creators), to Avi Tevanian (the Mach and NextStep/OS X) lead, and of course folks at Sun who worked on Java, Java ME, StarOffice/OpenOffice, SunRay, web engineering, etc. etc. The list is very long. One of the creative engineers I've had a fun time working with is Hideya Kawahara. I first met him when we were in Cupertino working at JavaSoft (a Sun division). We'd always talk about consumer electronics and user interfaces. Years later, he created a prototype 3D interface called Project Looking Glass. The early prototype made you open your eyes into thinking of new ways to get beyond today's 2D world.

We got a few folks together yesterday to say "hello again to Hideya" and sayonara as he heads back to live in Japan. I'll always remember Hideya playing his Duke ukelele at JavaOne on the sidewalk outside Moscone Center as we "illegally" projected a demo on a rather large building across the street at night. Fortunately we didn't cause any accidents or road rage.

Thanks Hideya for all the fun over the years and keeping us all "young" and creative. Hopefully we'll see you in Tokyo or back in Silicon Valley soon.